This application makes reference to, incorporates the same herein, and claims all benefits accruing under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7119 from an application entitled HINGE DEVICE filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on Nov. 28, 2001 and assigned Serial No. 2001-74441 by that Office.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hinge device of a foldable electronic appliance having a main body and a sub-body that can be opened which is installed on the main body. In particular, the hinge device allows the sub-body to be opened and shut smoothly and allows a user to feel certain vibrations when the sub-body is opened and shut, thereby ensuring the reliability of a product to the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, various articles of electronic appliances are available due to development of electronic industries. In particular, the electronic appliances are gradually becoming smaller, leaner and lighter in order to meet demand of consumers while functions thereof are becoming more various. For the purpose of this, the industries are focusing upon high integration and downsizing of electronic function groups.
As a measure of downsizing the articles as above, some of the articles are discriminated into a main body and a sub-body, in which the main body and the sub-body are folded to overlap with each other when they are not used or are in a standby state.
Examples of foldable electronic appliances include a portable notebook computer, a portable terminal, an Internet telephone and the like. Each of the foldable appliances comprises a main body generally having a keypad assembly for data input and a sub-body having a display panel for displaying data. When the foldable appliance is not used or is carried along in an unused state, the foldable appliance is kept in a folded position wherein the sub-body overlaps the main body. Therefore, a hinge device is adopted to install the sub-body on the main body such that the sub-body can be opened and closed, and consideration of an angle of the sub-body between the opened and closed positions is taken into account when designing the hinge device.
With the hinge device as set forth above, however, there are no alternate positions between the opened and closed positions of the sub-body relative to the main body. Assembly tolerance causes the electronic appliances to have different degrees of resistance to the sub-body being closed, thereby degrading the reliability thereof. When the sub-body is fully folded on the main body, close contact may not be maintained between the sub-body and the main body in that the sub-body may move away from the main body, in response to the smallest external impact, such that the appliance may be susceptible to damage.
Accordingly the present invention has been devised to solve the foregoing problem of the related art and it is an object of the invention to provide a hinge device which is adopted to maintain a sub-body in a completely contacting relation with a main body, when closed, so as to preventan appliance from damage due to external impact.
It is another object of the invention to provide a hinge device which allows a user to feel vibrations as the sub-body is moved past predetermined angles between the fully open and fully closed positions with respect to the main body, thereby ensuring the reliability of a product.
Therefore, according to an aspect of the present invention to realize the foregoing objects, in a foldable appliance which comprises a main body, a sub-body that can be opened and closed which is installed on the main body and a hinge device for hinge coupling the main body to the sub-body. The hinge device comprises: a hinge shaft with one end mounted to the sub-body and the other end mounted to the main body, wherein the one end is fixed to play with the sub-body and the other end partially penetrates into the main body in an idle-coupling relation; a fixed disk penetrated by the hinge shaft, fixed at one face to the main body, and having at least one space and at least one protrusion continued from the space in the opposite face from the fixing face to main body; a movable disk penetrated by the other end of the hinge shaft and face-contacting with the fixed disk to rotate with the hinge shaft, and having at least one protrusion on a face contacting with the fixed disk; elastic means penetrated by the hinge shaft and axially pressing the movable disk; and fixing means for fixing the fixed disk, the movable disk and the elastic means.
Further, the inventive hinge device comprises a fixed disk fixed to the main body and a movable disk rotating in cooperation with the sub-body, in which the main body maintains a fully folded position with the sub-body when the protrusion of the movable disk settles into the space in the fixed disk. In this case, the protrusion settled into the space of the fixed disk applies a certain amount of fixing power to prevent playing so that the sub-body fully folded on the main body can maintain its position without playing under a certain amount of external impact.
Further, pressing the movable disk against the fixed disk can maintain the position of the protrusion of the movable disk settled into the space in the fixed disk. Elastic means is employed as pressing means, and examples thereof may include a compressed coil spring, a torsion spring with each end fixed to each of the main body and the sub-body, and preferably a disk spring.
A bent projection is formed on the movable disk and a stopper protrusion is formed on the main body within a rotational radius of the bent projection so that the sub-body is opened on the main body with a predetermined angle. For example, the opening angle is about 135 which is most preferable to display a display panel to a user. The stopper protrusion is formed at a position to maintain such an angle. In other words, the invention excludes necessity of providing a stopper device for supporting the sub-body.
Preferably, the inventive hinge device can be embodied on brackets comprising a sub-body bracket fixed to the sub-body and a main body bracket fixed to the main body.
Moreover, the inventive hinge device comprises at least one spacer washer interposed between each of components, e.g. the fixed disk, the movable disk, the sub-body bracket and the main body bracket, to adequately distribute space thereby maintaining smoother operation thereof.